Offa Bank Robbery: CP blames police for mass casualties

Kwara’s Commissioner of Police Aminu Saleh has explained why many people lost their lives during the recent armed robbery attack on some commercial banks in Offa.

According to the new CP, lack of armoured persinnel carriers, intelligence breakdown and lack of reinforcement made the attack worse.

“In fact we have two moribund APCs,’ he said.

He told journalists the large number of the robbers overwhelmed the few policemen on ground at the time–and that the police also had low connectivity with members of the community. The police had no hints of whta the criminals were planning

“However, we’re re-strategising and repositioning our men. We’re working on the community to ensure that those lapses we observed are addressed,” he said.

“What essentially went wrong is our response capacity. We’re going to correct all those anomalies and get our men to be more responsive.

But the state government, he noted, has decided to intervene.

The police boss added the command is on the trail of the suspects and a lot of successes have been recorded.

Saleh promised the command will ensure that there was no recurrence of such in the state.

No fewer than nine policemen and scores of people lost their lives in the attack launched by about 30 armed robbers that raided the banking communities.